Michael Perry's Blog, page 415

Too Many Tomatoes

Must be that time of year.  I've received a number of emails asking me how to make the roast tomatoes I describe in Truck: A Love Story. It was tomatoes, fresh thyme, fresh marjoram, olive oil, sea salt, fresh ground pepper, slow roasting, and as much garlic as you like.  Separate the stock and the pulp.  Eat the garlic while standing at the stove.  The actual recipe can be found on page 92 of Tom Collichio's Think Like a Chef, worth buying for the photographs alone.

Truth be told, the...

Alfredo Narciso

Came across an old friend via the usual Brownian FaceGoogle mish-mash.  I remember when Alfredo was Al, and we were doing a play at the local coffee shop.  I'm still going to the same coffee shop, but Al has been in NYC for a while now, and making his way just fine.  Neat to see.

His website says he can play guitar, too, and it's true.  Long before I could even do a D-chord, long before the Long Beds, Al would come to my house in New Auburn and play Steve Earle songs while I tried to sing...

Jaggernaughty-Jiggity

Been listening to my new Jaggernauts album.  We Control the Horizontal.  Mmm, feisty and really ups my tempo at the keyboard.

Early favorite is Track 3, "N-Ski in A."  Politeness compels me to inform you that the lyrics are not the sort of thing you'd play for the tots nor aloud at work.  Triplicate F-bomb.  But listen and you'll know why folks show up to hear Noel and the 'Nauts.  Tight, rocking, poppy, and loud.

Extra credit for lyrics mentioning Shawtown and Big Eddy Springs.

And finally...

An Even Better Term

I call myself a freelance writer.  Meaning that I love the art and dance and music and ineffable joys of words written and spoken, but ultimately I am a self-employed fellow taking/generating work where I can find it.  So when I read this obituary, I enjoyed this quote:

"I've always wanted to be what I have become, a journeyman writer," he told The Guardian of London in 1994.

I also liked this bit:

He was the founder and life president of the Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant...

Words and Phrases That Creep Me Out

For reasons I can neither explain nor defend, the following words and phrases creep me out.

scrumptious

pick your brain

munching

There will be more.

P.S. The word poop used to creep me out, then there became kids in the house and my distaste became irrelevant.

P.P.S. I do still wish people wouldn't tell me they are "pooped" or "pooped out" (my own beloved grandmother did so regularly, it's not personal) because the inside of my head operates first and foremost in the visual realm…

Question of the Day

Why do our ducks (some brown domestic breed) dig holes in the ground beside the water tub using their bills?  The holes are about the diameter of a pop can and can be up to six inches deep.  They fill with water and the ducks swish and rattle their bills within.  Is this the equivalent of duck tooth-brushing?

I have spent a full 15 seconds Googling the subject and found nothing.

Cool Weather

Cool weather + September = Mike ordering deer tags, practicing with bow, sorting through hunting gear, eyeing freezer.

Turkeys Dancing

A flock of them, on the blacktop driveway within sight of my office window, hopping and circling and pecking at each other.  With turkey season in the offing it may be time to remove the screen and clear the shooting lane…

Dirt Tracks and Wide Open Spaces

Sparse posting.  Our days busy with real (non-digital) things.  Albert's funeral Friday.  It was more a ceremony of honor than sadness.  Although when we hit the second verse of "How Great Thou Art", my sister-in-law had to share her tissues with me.  "…When through the woods and forest glades I wander…"  When grieving I tend to seek trees or open skies.  The finest thing I can say in honor of Albert is that I went home having given great consideration to my role as a father.

And so it was in a r

Fat Albert

A moment to remember Fat Albert, who was actually as skinny as the sandhill cranes that bugled from his cornfields.  I sat in his living room one day while he told me story after story, one of which wound up in Coop.  This man was so good to my family, and in particular my brother Jed.  Albert lived a full and reverent life – 95 years, and didn't hang up the deer hunting cap until the very last.